I need a new IDE

[pixelsoul]

Wanted to get some suggestions on some good IDE's to try or go to. I was using php builder for a while but it has a couple of strange things going on with it and I want to try something new.

Any suggestions? (prefer freeware :) )

Thanks

[alimadzi]

Freeware, eh? Your best choice by far is Eclipse w/ the PHP plugin...

http://www.eclipse.org/
http://www.phpeclipse.de/

Enjoy!

[Flyier]

http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/

[rincewind456]

Fork out some cash :) and go for the best Zend Studio (http://www.zend.com/store/software/zend_studio/lp_on)

[piersk]

Is it actually the best or in your opinion?

[rincewind456]

Well duh! Anything that is said about anything being the best, from beer to football teams is just an opinion. So In My Opinion having used all those editors mentioned above, and a few more, including (god forgive me) Dreamweaver, then Zend is the best.

[piersk]

Thats better ;)

[bpat1434]

Honestly, I've used Zend and I'm trialing NuSphere PhpED and Komodo IDE and I find them far superior to Zend. Zend has the debugger, but in Vista it never worked for me. The CGI would keep crashing out on me every time I went into ZendCore or ZendPlatform. While using the IDE, it hogged some of my resources (though, that could just be a fluke). Anyway, Zend tended to lag a bit because it was java based (much like Eclipse).

NuSphere is one I really really like. It has some flaws, and takes a slight getting used to, but it's really really good. Lots of people who use Zend end up switching to NuSphere once they try it. I can now understand why. It's a better UI (in my opinion) and works really well. It's not java based, so it runs faster on my machine, and does what I need. Since I have my own Apache server, I don't use the debug stuff, so I can't attest to that.

Komodo IDE is really good too. Their 4.0 release is good. I only have a few interface issues (like adding projects is weird) and I don't like that they don't integrate with SVN (at least not that I've seen).

I will say this though, sometimes it's best to shell out the $200 - $300 for an IDE. I'm not ecstatic that I spent that much money on Zend; however, my trials for NuSphere and Komodo are coming to a close, so I may find myself going back until my license expires.

Each company (Zend, NuSphere, ActiveState) offers a 14 to 30 day trial of their software. Just download it and test it. Trust me, you'll find one you like.

Note: Zend does not have a money-back guarantee. That's what the trial is for.

I'm sure I just confused you, but I hope it helps you make a semi-informed decision.

[dougal85]

I use Zend... and really happy with it. Looking at bpat1434's post, that might be a problem when I feel I must install vista. But its fine for me just now on XP.

oh and Check out Aptana, they are not quite there yet but are in the process of adding PHP support. The JavaScript/HTML/CSS is awesome. Once Aptana add's full PHP support I can see myself leaving Zend behind. It's free btw and based on Eclipse, it can be as a plug in or standalone version.

[alimadzi]

I'm using Aptana as an Eclipse plugin and it's great. Together with Subclipse for connecting to SVN repos and PuTTY for running SSH sessions, I have everything I need and it didn't cost a dime. For me Eclipse is only slow during startup and it loads all sorts of Java libraries. Once it's running, I don't have any complaints about its performance.

Zend Studio is tempting, but I'm happy with what I have.

[Elizabeth]

I have to second bpat's thoughts on Nusphere. I've been using PhpEd for a while and I really like it. I don't think they have a mac version though yet, so if you're on a mac your SOL. Otherwise it's definitely worth testing out.

[bpat1434]

NuSphere has a ways to go, but they're making headway. Things like the auto close quotes & brackets really kill me.

If I type:

$var['some_key'] = array('key'=>'value');

Then using NuSphere I get this:

$var['somekey'] = array('key'=>'value');'')']

But, using Zend I get what I expect. It's noted in their forums, and dmitri is supposed to work on it for the next release. So who knows..... I like it. Although, if I can ever get my linux box working, I'll see about putting the Zend and NuSphere debugger on it and see if that boosts my speeds of Zend and NuSphere...

I'm almost half tempted to stick with Zend just because of the SVN support (as opposed to NuSphere who won't directly support it).